


Golden Slumbers

by magicforestboy



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, One Shot, Post-The Raven King, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Song Lyrics, The Raven King Spoilers, pynch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 09:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13499084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicforestboy/pseuds/magicforestboy
Summary: Sometimes Ronan wakes up and can't rid his head of nightmares and grief. Most times, Adam just holds him. This time, he also tries something new.(OR: Soft Feelings and Softer Songs)





	Golden Slumbers

**///Sleep, Pretty Darling///**

 

_Care is heavy, therefore sleep you,_

_You are care, and care must keep you._

_-Thomas Dekker_

 

The comforter is plush and it trickles down Adam’s bare legs as it shifts to the other side of the bed. He blinks once, a wand of yellow streaming from a gap in the window curtain, causing him to squint softly. Going to tug the edge of the blanket to coat himself once more in warmth, he hears a quiet noise sound out beside him.  It prickles at his chest when he recognizes it: a sniffle, sharp in its attempt at concealment.

Shifting onto his side, he sees Ronan sitting upright. This is nothing particularly new; sleep has not come easy for him for some time since his mother’s death and Gansey’s close call. He’s drawn his knees to his chest, folded over himself, his face pressed into his palms.

His breathing this morning is ragged and catching, near to the point of the air not coming back in, and Adam hauls himself up into a seated position. There’s no hesitation; he places his hand gently on Ronan’s back and rubs in slow circular motions, his other hand landing on Ronan’s knee. Ronan’s breath catches again, and Adam can feel his heart beat slamming. Adam wraps his arms around Ronan’s chest and rests his chin on his shoulder, and slowly he begins rocking them both gently back and forth.

So often no words come to either of them in these moments in the middle of the night or the early of the morning, simply this language of touch and the hours it often takes to get Ronan’s breathing back to a steady place. On this morning, with the sprinkles of caressing light coming in and bathing this sorrow in sunrise, Adam closes his eyes and allows a melody to enter his mind.

He takes in a slow breath and in a whisper of a voice, he begins to sing.

“Once there was a way…” Ronan stills in his arms, a shiver racking his back, “to get back homeward…”

Adam licks his lips, “Once there was a way…to get back home…” kisses the back of Ronan’s neck tenderly and quick, “Sleep pretty darling, do not cry… _or do_ …” Ronan buries his face into Adam’s hand, still wrapped around him snuggly, and Adam can feel the lukewarm tickle of a wet tear on his own skin, “and I will sing a lullaby…

“Golden slumbers fill your eyes…” Ronan blinks against Adam’s arm, a feather light brush of eyelashes. The light touch of the sun continues to envelop them as it rises, as if coaxed out too with this song and the honey melt of that pretty Virginia accent.

Adam squeezes his eyes tighter, his own voice wobbling just slightly, “smiles awake you when you rise…” At this, Ronan takes Adam’s hands and turns it over, so Adam’s knuckles rest against his palm, and he traces each line while his body shakes.

“Sleep pretty darling, you can cry…” Ronan lifts Adam’s hand to touch the tears that softly make lines down his face and Adam buries himself just a bit more into Ronan’s neck, where a tiny curl is beginning to grow. “And I will sing a lullaby…”

As Adam repeats the chorus once more, voice crackling on _homeward_ , Ronan brings Adam’s hands now to his mouth and plants multiple kisses on the pad of each finger, his own hands trembling around them.

“Sleep pretty darling, let yourself cry…” they’re rocking back and forth together again to this tune, and Adam finds himself pressing his lips right against Ronan’s ear, “And I will sing a lullaby…I will sing a lullaby.”

When Adam is done singing, Ronan is not done crying or shaking, but his breath is significantly more level, and this pushes Adam’s relieved sigh into Ronan’s ear.

“Parrish,” the word is barely a scratch out of the throat, but it sends another rush of emotion through Adam, a lightning bolt of concern etched into his forehead.

He whispers, nose still nudging against Ronan’s earlobe, “I’m here,” and he listens to Ronan breathing out slowly.

“Adam.”

Adam blinks his eyes open, feels Ronan press his palm to the lips he’s become so familiar with, and then the synchronized rocking slows to a cease and Ronan’s shifting around right into Adam’s lap. There isn’t an eye to eye contact made just yet, instead just Ronan’s face buried into Adam’s shoulder and his legs wrapped tightly around Adam’s waist, his hands seeking refuge in Adam’s hair.

He says it again, and he says it in such a cherishing and lilting way, “ _Adam_ ,” that Adam feels a spark of a shiver strike down his own spine in tandem. He says it in a way that sounds both like Adam and also like thank you but mostly like something they had not yet said aloud at all…

Adam pours as much soul and feeling as he is capable of into his response, “ _Ronan_."

Peeling himself off Adam’s sticky-with-tears shirt, Ronan places his hands on Adam’s jaw and meets Adam’s eyes full on. They both have pink rimmed lids with a vein of red to the side, and watery irises. This is irrelevant. Keeping eyes on eyes, their pupils dilate and fill with views of the other, and Adam sees such a brilliance of liquid love in Ronan’s eyes that it nearly makes him cry all over again.

Ever so gently, Ronan presses his forehead against Adam, letting his eyes close again. The light pressure combined with the stronger bout of sunlight stream makes Adam want to yell at whatever god it is that this boy believes in: _doesn’t he deserve at least a break from this grief?_ But he knows there’s nothing he can do about the lot either of them have been given. _The only thing I can do is give him care and compassion and the most adoration I’m capable of. I’m capable of that. I am._

There’s a hand tilting his chin up now, and Adam rubs Ronan’s side as their lips meet in the middle.

***

It’s about noon, and Ronan is pouring coffee into an _I DON’T BI IT_ mug he bought Adam for Christmas. He hands it to him, and then sits up on the island countertop cross-legged to sip from his own. Adam’s on one of the stools, and he hums a thank you, raising his eyes bemusedly at Ronan’s choice of seating. 

The red rims of their eyes are mostly faded, and a settled melancholy has taken its place.

Ronan bites the inside of his cheek. He knows this is a story he wants to tell, the one that perches on the edge of his tongue, but the act of actually letting it out is a difficult one. He gulps down a hot slosh of coffee and then lets out the smallest of laughs.

Adam’s eyebrows tweak again. A tiny smile pushes up the left corner of his mouth. Ronan knows this in itself is an open-ended question, one he’s not expected to answer if he doesn’t wish to. But he does wish to.

“That was my mom’s fucking favourite song to sing to us.”

The rainbow cup clanks against the table and Ronan watches Adam’s shoulders loosen with this information. Ronan knows him well enough now to know this isn’t always a movement of regret or shame, but sometimes a calm move of relief or of tension unwinding.

All he says, as his eyes softly meet Ronan’s, is, “Tell me about it.”

 _Okay_. “She wasn’t a huge Beatles fan or anything, but she loved that one. She loved anything that sounded remotely like a lullaby. Which, fuck, makes a lot of sense…”

“I’ll bet she sounded lovely.”

It strikes Ronan in this moment that Adam never got to hear Aurora sing. It’s a stinging sort of dagger, but he lets the feeling come and pass before responding, and Adam allows him all the time he needs. “She did. No matter what she was singing. It was always damn magic.”

“Mm.”

“She’d whip that one out when Dec or me or Matt woke up in the middle of the night. Especially when we were young. And…and whenever I heard it, even if it was for Matt or Dec, I’d get up out of bed and go to them, to hear it closer. We all would.”

Adam is quiet, his head tilted slightly to the side, and he smiles a little at this. It’s encouraging and fucking adorable too and Ronan un-grips his mug, sets it down.

“And then whatever room I was in, I’d end up falling asleep there. And I’d wake up like where the fuck am I? And then I’d remember the song…”

“I hope I did it some justice then,” Adam takes a long sip of coffee, meets Ronan’s eyes again. “I know I don’t have her voice or anythin’.”

Hearing this punches at Ronan’s heart, and he wants to let out all the rest of the words in his mouth all at once. Like, _fuck, Adam, I know I didn’t dream you because not even I could make you this perfectly imperfectly perfect, singing that fucking song in this room in my childhood fucking home with the golden light framing you like the damn magic_ you _are._

“I hope you’re not just saying that to back out of singing again, asshole.”

Adam laughs. “Does that mean it was alright?”

“ _God_.”

“How’d you know my real name?”

This time Ronan barks a laugh. “I…you were…you _are_ …” he cracks his knuckles and shifts gears. “It was just what I needed. And somehow you knew that. I don’t fucking know how. But you did.”

 _And how could you ever think that you’re broken, or not good enough, or not good enough for_ my _shitty brokenness, or incapable of love? Damn it._

A tear or two slicks down Ronan’s face again, but it’s different this time. It’s like that liquid love except it’s leaking. _Leaking liquid love, that’s what you do to me. Can’t you see that?_

“Hey,” Adam shakes his head, crawls up on the counter to kneel in front of the other boy. “I don’t know how either, and I can’t promise I’ll always get it right, but _fuck_ will I always try.”

Ronan nods, voiceless now for a moment or so, wondering whether he should’ve shucked a shot or two of whiskey into his coffee. But, no. These are feelings he wants to fully feel.        

“Of course you will, damn overachiever,” Ronan whispers finally with a smirk. “Damn _Magician_.”

Adam snorts, folds himself into a criss-cross himself, knees touching Ronan’s. “I’m not sure that I’m a magician anymore. But thank you."            

“Cabeswater or not, Adam, you’re always it. And not a magician, fuck. _The_ Magician.”

There’s not even a pause of silence. “ _Your_ magician, Dreamer.”

 _Well_. “ _Your_ _dreamer_ , Magician,” Ronan interlocks his fingers with Adam’s. “Any other secret talents you’ve been hiding from me?”         

“Hm…I think you’ll have to wait and see.”   

“I don’t think I’m patient enough for that.”            

“I think you can learn to be, darling.”               

A shiver rustles across Ronan’s neck without his consent and Adam smirks. “Fuck you.”               

“Yeah, yeah. Love you too.”               

Ronan’s eyes widen at this, and Adam’s skin has the dignity to flush a deep pink.              

Adam coughs, buries his head into Ronan’s chest. “It’s okay. If you’re not ready. I didn’t… It wasn’t meant to come out just yet.”               

“Don’t you fucking dare take it back.”              

Soft and slow, Adam presses a kiss to the black fabric, right at the collar. “Nothing to take back.” He presses another to Ronan’s throat. “It’s the truth.” 

“Say it again, then.”          

Adam peels himself away to stare unblinkingly into Ronan’s blue eyes. “I love you, Dreamer.”

A smile breaks across Ronan’s face, reaches all the way to his cheeks and eye crinkles as the words fold themselves into an easily reachable box in his memory. _Why is it these words, so unoriginal and so overplayed, that seal everything, that settle on my skin like a new fucking sun?_ _Because it’s_ love _, idiot._             

Adam wipes a stray tear off Ronan’s cheek. “You know if I say it I won’t be able to fucking stop, Parrish.”            

He takes in a breath. “As long as it’s true, Lynch...”              

“You already know it’s fucking true. When have I ever been able to hide it? I love you, Adam. I love you. God, it feels like I’ve never not loved you. _I love you-_ ” Ronan feels his hand collide with his mug and the sound of it crackling against the floor is shattering.              

Adam grins whole-heartedly. “You must really love me to wreck a mug about it.”        

Laughter breaks through the both of them. “Fuck you,” he says again, and this time it sounds like he might be fishing for something, trying to recreate the initial moment of it.           

This time, Adam purses his lips. “Here? Might be a little messy.”

And Ronan slaps Adam’s arm and they’re laughing again, and the noon sun splinters across the kitchen and speckles their skin and they’re both thinking _god, there_ is _a fucking way back home and it’s this boy and his love, love, love, love…_

**Author's Note:**

> I heard a cover of Golden Slumbers done on Dodie Clark's channel Doddlevloggle and thus this idea was born. I can't recommend her version enough; it's so pretty! Let me know if there are any mistakes or feedback (I wrote this pretty quick!) or if you wanna chat more about these adorable boys... I'm always up for that.  
> Hope you have a lovely day!!!


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